


Saudade

by akouos



Series: KidLiz Week 2015 [1]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 13:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4788167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akouos/pseuds/akouos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And now she was sitting on his bed, looking pale and unwilling to mar the tentative buffer of emotional walls and boundaries they had silently built up over the past four years." A study of physical intimacy between Death and his weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "cuddle" for KidLiz week. Happy KidLiz Week everyone! Hope you enjoy!

The house creaked and groaned around him, wind whipping outside the windows and banging the shutters. Despite the morbid appearance on the outside, Gallows Manor maintained a sleek and modern appearance on the inside. Slick, black granite counter tops and dark iron appliances in the kitchen surrounded a large island with a sink. A deep chestnut table sat on the dark wood flooring of the dining room with floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the backyard. The grandiose atrium with its sweeping staircase leading to the left and right wings of rooms upstairs was the first thing you saw when you walked in and it had, admittedly never to her outwardly confession, taken Liz Thompson’s breath away when she had first walked through the looming, black oak doors. But the sharp intake of her breath that he didn’t think she meant him to hear was enough.

But as the years had passed it had become not just Kid’s home but theirs. Liz’s bedroom, all deep purple and smelling of her shampoo and cluttered with clothes and candles and books, had been made her own. Patty’s, bright pink and smelling like flowers and oil paint, had been scribbled over. Various art and drawings of different mediums were plastered all over the walls in between painted flowers, signings of their friends names, hearts and inside jokes that she had allowed them all to mark her wall with.

He tripped over the laundry baskets that sat outside their doors until he was too annoyed and finally washed them in a fit of nesting. He knew their favorite coffee mugs in the cabinet. Patty filled the sitting rooms and the library with flowers. A collection of movies had accumulated in the living room, so many in fact he had purchased a large bookcase in the second year of their partnership to fit them all. Patty’s sketchbooks lay in various states of muse all over the house. Liz had brightened the place. No longer were the windows shut and covered by deep dark maroon drapes, but hung open blowing the ends of light airy curtains across the floor.

The Thompsons had buried themselves in the walls of his home and the dreary black and white color scheme had been infected with bright pops of color.

Kid turned over to fumble for his light switch as the door of his bedroom creaked open, scaring him out of his state of reflection. His eyes ached as his bedroom was flooded with a warm light and he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in an effort to soothe them. Shadows danced along the walls.

“Hey, Kid,” a soft voice greeted him and he opened his eyes to Liz peeking around the wood of his door, still halfway in the hall.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice rough from almost-sleep as he caught the slight nervousness in the shift of her body. She folded her arms around herself, bare legs long underneath the large t-shirt she had worn to bed. His lungs felt as if they had suddenly been sucked of all their air. The air conditioning rose goosebumps on his bare arms as he sat up in bed and left the relative warmth of his comforter.

“I think I heard the back door open,” she murmured. It was sometimes still strange seeing her this way, her tan face flawed by acne scars and freckles and paler than he was used to without her makeup. Her posture was not a casual crescendo of “Look at me! Look at me!” but of dreams, tiredness and sleep. Her eyes looked softer, a deep soothing blue.

A beat of silence passed between them as they both waited for the other to finish her sentence.

The blonde huffed eventually and rolled her eyes, looking away from him as if she felt foolish, “Could you go check?”

It took a moment for Kid’s mind to register the request but in the end he nodded and slid out of his bed. Tugging on a shirt, he blinked a few more times and stretched out his lax muscles.

“I’ll be back,” he yawned and shuffled into the long dark hallway. Picking his way through the darkness and thanking god that Patty or Liz hadn’t left shoes (or more specifically heels, those were the worst) in the hallway, he managed to stumble down stairs. The cold tile of the atrium was harsh against his feet and after he had double checked all of the doors he thumped back upstairs in his drowsy state.

He found Liz perched on his bed, picking at her nails (a habit she had seemingly picked up from him) and looking exhausted, if a little shaken. His soul warmed at the sight of her and he smiled ever so slightly.

“No ghosts, ghouls or goblins,” he joked but quieted when she fidgeted. He stood in silence for a moment, watching her rub her hands on the fabric resting on her thighs. Day Liz would have laughed or rolled her eyes, alternatively a combination of both that he loved so much. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him quickly with a weak smile.

It wasn’t unusual for partners to sleep in the same bed. The familiar wavelength, the one you shared everything with, was understandably comforting. Especially the three of them. But that had been the point. It was the three of them, Patty squeezed tightly in the center between them under the blankets of his california king. The physical intimacy between solely himself and Liz had become almost nonexistent over the years. So slow that he almost didn’t notice.

And now she was sitting on his bed, looking pale and unwilling to mar the tentative buffer of emotional walls and boundaries they had silently built up over the past four years.

“You can just stay with me if you want?”

And all of a sudden he felt like he was spilling over with water. His chest was tight again like it was when he saw her standing in his doorway, almost drowning him and his ears ring with anticipation and nervousness and please, please, please stay with me.

“Okay,” she murmured, finally. It’s a standoff between the two of them before finally Kid loops around the bed and crawls under the sheets, trying to act like this is a normal thing.

She peeled back the untouched blankets of the other side and slides into the chilled linens.

_She kicked her legs up into his lap and tossed a few chips into her mouth while she watched Patty fiddle with the DVD player._

He turned off the light and flooded the room with darkness.

_He pressed his hand to the small of her back while they walked._

She folds her hands over the blankets on her stomach and stares up at the ceiling, listening to the wind.

_She held his hands and pulled him along, eyes bright with eagerness and an ocean behind her._

He doesn’t move. He won’t or he can’t. Because he wanted to do a lot of things actually but even considering them felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

_He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, a habit born out of annoyance more than affection. But there is affection there too. Especially in his eyes._

She shifted a little and sighed softly, almost as if to let him know she was still there. He knew. She was warm beside him, warmer than she had ever felt to him before even the times he actually had touched her.

_She was tying his tie and her thumb brushed against the cold skin of his neck._

“Kid?”

“Yeah?” he asked. His voice didn’t sound like his own and he almost questioned if it was actually his. It sounded smaller, in the infinite darkness of his room.

They both paused, unaware of each other’s anticipation and the pricking of their skin.

The bed creaked as she shifted, her leg finding his underneath the blanket. Kid almost made a noise at how warm she was when her leg hooked over his own. He could smell her more clearly now, floral shampoo and honeysuckle lotion and their laundry detergent. She always smelled the kind of sweet that made you want to bury your face in her hair.

She pressed against his arm by his side and he carefully – almost instinctively – moved it so she could curl into his side. Her breasts and stomach were soft against his ribs through the flimsy t-shirt she wore. He held his arm awkwardly, half cocked and resting on his elbow above her head as if he didn’t know what to do with it now. He shifted a little closer to her, so their bodies molded just right.

His heart was pounding in his ears. After a moment, he swallowed through the tightness of his throat and rested his arm over her shoulders. His fingers ghosted over her bare arm, right before the sleeve of her shirt started and she shivered a little.

He would never say anything about it but he felt her heart pounding in her chest as well.

Outside, a coyote howled its existence and he pressed his nose into her hair.


End file.
